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pentyne
Nov 7, 2012
WGN? The baseball network?

Yeah.



Manhattan is a period piece costume drama set in Los Alamos covering the development of the atomic bomb. The focus is between two competing research groups, the clear favorites developing the "Thin Man" and another team sort of disregarded and not taken seriously that is trying to prove it has a much better bomb they can build in a shorter time.

A huge focus of the show seems to be the conflict between freedom and secrecy. In the first episode, some minor files have gone missing and it becomes a huge issue that drives the core of the plot. We also get some friction between the families of the scientists who live in a bubble and who's husband cannot tell them anything at all. It looks like a pretty miserable situation for anyone not directly involved in research, and since the local MPs are all young military men the wives are clearly interested in them.

There's not much especially notable about the show's cast to really mention so far. The only famous faces I've seen are Mark Moses (Duck from Mad Men) as the Army officer in charge of the base, and Richard Schiff (Toby from West Wing) as the shady Intelligence operative on site to interrogate suspected spies.

The reviews are...interesting. Half of them are along the lines of "Eh, it's not half bad." while others are "This is the best thing all summer by far but being on WGN no one will see it." Here's the most positive review I can find.

http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2014/07/27/wgn-s-manhattan-is-summer-s-best-new-show-but-will-anyone-watch.html

quote:

As the arms race escalates and the secrets and lies unfold, the result is a series that’s both tense and sleepy in its pace. Throw in the period setting and “like Mad Men during WWII” shorthand becomes inevitable. In a summer that’s offered new programs that pretty much all sit on the spectrum from “silly, but still curious” (Extant, The Strain) on one end to “just plain silly” (Dating Naked) on the other, Manhattan is the most grown up, worth-watching new series we have.

And it’s on this network no one’s heard of.

You see, every network needs its Mad Men, its The Shield, its Rectify to announce its presence as a legitimate incubator for quality original television to be taken seriously (as AMC, FX, and the SundanceTV, respectively, have). After missing that mark with the empty-calorie fluff of Salem, WGN is nailing it with Manhattan. Already critics are buzzing about the series, garnering necessary and positive word of mouth. If the ratings follow, then WGN may have just arrived.

edit: SECOND SEASON CONFIRMED! http://insidetv.ew.com/2014/10/14/wgn-america-renews-manhattan-for-season-2/

pentyne fucked around with this message at 20:36 on Oct 14, 2014

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Norwegian Rudo
May 9, 2013

pentyne posted:

The only famous faces I've seen are Mark Moses (Duck from Mad Men) as the Army officer in charge of the base, and Richard Schiff (Toby from West Wing) as the shady Intelligence operative on site to interrogate suspected spies.

I'd say Daniel Stern is easily more famous than either of them.

Gonz
Dec 22, 2009

"Jesus, did I say that? Or just think it? Was I talking? Did they hear me?"
The addition of Toby Ziegler was a fine choice.

less laughter
May 7, 2012

Accelerock & Roll
This is the smartest show on TV. I love it, apart from the ill-advised cinematography.

Casnorf
Jun 14, 2002

Never drive a car when you're a fish
Manhattan is the first show in years I've bothered to watch when it airs. It could just be the nuclear science nerd in me (getting to nerd out with my wife about the competing bomb techniques and then handing her basically my library of history books about the project) but there's also something appealing in a Ken Burns' The War kind of way about the human side of Los Alamos. It's something you don't see very often, except maybe in Feynman's stories about his time there.

NieR Occomata
Jan 18, 2009

Glory to Mankind.

This show is absolutely loving incredible

Escobarbarian
Jun 18, 2004


Grimey Drawer
This show is rather good and shows a lot of promise, which I expect it'll live up to sooner rather than later. Awesome performances but Frank isn't really clicking for me as a lead yet. I like the two main wives and Fritz a whole bunch.

ShakeZula
Jun 17, 2003

Nobody move and nobody gets hurt.

Bown posted:

This show is rather good and shows a lot of promise, which I expect it'll live up to sooner rather than later. Awesome performances but Frank isn't really clicking for me as a lead yet. I like the two main wives and Fritz a whole bunch.

Yeah, I like the show a lot but Frank just kind of irritates me at this point. I honestly hope Charlie cracks the compression problem and throws it back in Frank's face, just to knock him down a peg.

pentyne
Nov 7, 2012

E PLURIBUS ANUS posted:

This show is absolutely loving incredible

I'm pretty eager to see how this show does. I imagine the network will put up with some pretty low ratings if the critical acclaim continues. 2 episodes in and they definitely have a long-shot chance for an Emmy based on the quality of what the cast has shown so far.

Also, I absolutely love the cinematography, set design, costumes, etc. It's really better then any new series I've seen in years.

Fateo McMurray
Mar 22, 2003

E PLURIBUS ANUS posted:

This show is absolutely loving incredible

It's good but let's not get carried away.



Show picked the perfect time to premiere. Everything really interesting is in break so what else you gonna watch

-Blackadder-
Jan 2, 2007

Game....Blouses.

E PLURIBUS ANUS posted:

This show is absolutely loving incredible

Whoa, have I found something new to watch? This sounds exciting. Off to check it out, now.

pentyne
Nov 7, 2012
God drat I never expected a show to have a scene where a guy walks from chalkboard to chalkboard effortlessly fixing physics equations to be completely badass.

Plus, the entire episode dealt heavily with the soldier who shot Sid feeling an intense amount of guilt and is trying to deal with it while all the other MP's are cheering him and slapping him on the back while the Colonel tells him to stick to a certain set of "facts".

I also really enjoyed how Sid was constantly brought up as a "Jap spy" by housewives or random soldiers and others would get upset and say "Hey! He was Chinese" because Sid was more then some racist caricature, he was a human being.

And holy poo poo, the end of the episode was brilliant. The VO narration for the letter to Sid's wife and the shot of where it ends up, followed by Winters succeeding with implosion.

Whoever they hired for this show, they are at the top of their game. Every episode reminds me of a good Mad Men or Breaking Bad episode for how well they handle things.

pentyne fucked around with this message at 06:21 on Aug 11, 2014

Ein cooler Typ
Nov 26, 2013

by FactsAreUseless
WGN isn't showing baseball next year because they're too busy being a serious dramatic network

heck them

Gonz
Dec 22, 2009

"Jesus, did I say that? Or just think it? Was I talking? Did they hear me?"

Ein cooler Typ posted:

WGN isn't showing baseball next year because they're too busy being a serious dramatic network

heck them

WGN has never quite been the same since this happened:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tWdgAMYjYSs

WilWheaton
Oct 11, 2006

It'd be hard to get bored on this ship!
I feel really weird because this show is actually surprisingly good considering, but all I can think of when I see it is 'This is on WGN?' and it actually distracts me the whole time

counterfeitsaint
Feb 26, 2010

I'm a girl, and you're
gnomes, and it's like
what? Yikes.
I'm glad this finally got a thread. I've really been enjoying it so far. It's weird how there's only been three episodes so far but I feel like more has happened than in most other (terrible) summer shows.

Escobarbarian
Jun 18, 2004


Grimey Drawer
This show is really, really goddamn good. Who was that who wrote the letter at the end, though? I'm still iffy with some of the lesser characters.

CeeJee
Dec 4, 2001
Oven Wrangler
It's a great choice for a period piece on a relatively small budget. It's all happening in the same location that is by definition roughly constructed in the desert and a there are clearly defined groups both working towards a goal and competing. Frank Winter is also a great lead, he is both unsympathetic and incredibly compelling to watch. It took a little while for me to warm up to the Isaacs but his chalkboard smackdown and her switchboard antics made them much better.

Heisenberg (the real one) being the unseen enemy is just too funny.

Fooz
Sep 26, 2010


Yay a thread.

Bown posted:

This show is really, really goddamn good. Who was that who wrote the letter at the end, though? I'm still iffy with some of the lesser characters.

The English guy that the moody guy was accusing of setting Liao up.

Yeah I have to learn some names too.

CeeJee posted:

It's a great choice for a period piece on a relatively small budget. It's all happening in the same location that is by definition roughly constructed in the desert and a there are clearly defined groups both working towards a goal and competing. Frank Winter is also a great lead, he is both unsympathetic and incredibly compelling to watch. It took a little while for me to warm up to the Isaacs but his chalkboard smackdown and her switchboard antics made them much better.

Heisenberg (the real one) being the unseen enemy is just too funny.

History spoilers:

It's kind of funny since the Nazi Atomic Bomb Program lasted like a month and was dissolved when they realized that it would be difficult and expensive.

Fooz fucked around with this message at 22:19 on Aug 11, 2014

pentyne
Nov 7, 2012

Fooz posted:

Yay a thread.


The English guy that the moody guy was accusing of setting Liao up.

Yeah I have to learn some names too.


History spoilers:

It's kind of funny since the Nazi Atomic Bomb Program lasted like a month and was dissolved when they realized that it would be difficult and expensive.

No need to spoiler history.

Whatever the Nazis were actually getting up to with their bomb project the US was terrified that with the caliber of scientists in Germany at the time they must've been really close to the bomb. Of course by 1943 Germany was so strapped for cash merely keeping the army functioning and desperately trying to rush tanks off the production lines was all they could do.

Gonz
Dec 22, 2009

"Jesus, did I say that? Or just think it? Was I talking? Did they hear me?"
Got around to watching the newest episode; that's a pretty clever intro sequence.

Fact: This show owns. I didn't think it would, but it does.

NieR Occomata
Jan 18, 2009

Glory to Mankind.

Yeah that intro is just fantastic, I watched it twice with my mouth hung open

Very rarely do you get an intro that's a microcosm of the show as a whole but manhattan is it, and it's fuckin beautiful besides

Also frank winters might be the legit best and most compelling character I have seen this season

WilWheaton
Oct 11, 2006

It'd be hard to get bored on this ship!
Just watched this last episode, it was good but I didn't think it was quite as strong as the previous ones, maybe just because the flashbacks felt like a bit of a stretch, but, they do a decent job of showing you franks motivations, even if it is a bit of a blatant slap in the face to do that.

They might also be going a bit too strong on the 'implosion device is the underdog' angle. I know they knew the gun-bomb would work for sure and thats the reason the implosion device had to be tested, but, the gun type side would have been far more desperate for figuring out how to diffuse uranium 235 from 238 as I understand it. Even in 1946 when they had ordered a couple hundred nukes have they only had 9 in the US.

pentyne
Nov 7, 2012
drat, the scene where Frank hallucinates the mustard gas rolling in was another fantastic moment. The music especially just completely nailed what it probably feels like to hallucinate like that.

This show really makes me wonder about Oppenheimer. He comes off as a humorless rear end in a top hat. Conversely, Niels Bohr comes off as a cool dude. Bohr is just eager to see the site and chat with his old friend Frank Winter. He gets a fantastic line where when walking into the offices of the Eckley group and all the scientists are standing and cheering he says “I’m leaving. After my experience with the Nazis I don’t relish the exuberance of crowds.”

I have no idea who the actor playing Bohr is, but he does an absolutely amazing job. Everything about his brief character arc is phenomenal, especially the speech he gives at the end to Charlie about “How big is it” referring to more than just the technical specs of the bomb, which I won't spoil but is told with some amazing imagery.

Winters’ slowly approaching insanity, stemming from his time in the trenches, is starting to manifest is increasingly erratic behavior. Failing a detonation then immediately running to it, taking an MP’s gun and making him follow them as they carry the bomb to a new site, walking on a savaged foot, pointing a gun at his research assistant and telling him even scientists are soldiers in this war.

Eckely is just some stuffed shirt who enjoys his fancy dinners and high status while Frank is practically killing himself to try and build the only workable version of the bomb while not being taken seriously and only getting a fraction of the resources.

DarkCrawler
Apr 6, 2009

by vyelkin

pentyne posted:

drat, the scene where Frank hallucinates the mustard gas rolling in was another fantastic moment. The music especially just completely nailed what it probably feels like to hallucinate like that.

This show really makes me wonder about Oppenheimer. He comes off as a humorless rear end in a top hat. Conversely, Niels Bohr comes off as a cool dude. Bohr is just eager to see the site and chat with his old friend Frank Winter. He gets a fantastic line where when walking into the offices of the Eckley group and all the scientists are standing and cheering he says “I’m leaving. After my experience with the Nazis I don’t relish the exuberance of crowds.”

I have no idea who the actor playing Bohr is, but he does an absolutely amazing job. Everything about his brief character arc is phenomenal, especially the speech he gives at the end to Charlie about “How big is it” referring to more than just the technical specs of the bomb, which I won't spoil but is told with some amazing imagery.


Yeah, that scene was just great. Awesome show.

Escobarbarian
Jun 18, 2004


Grimey Drawer
Frank Winters may not play by the rules but dammit he gets results

Other than his character being super cliched (Hickey's still acting the hell out of it fwiw) this is still a good show though. Bohr was a good addition to this episode.

Fateo McMurray
Mar 22, 2003

Why did that WW1 German soldier's helmet have a swastika on it?

If it was just to remind the viewers that the bodies he was searching were, indeed, German, then come on we're better than that as viewers right?

Leb
Jan 15, 2004


Change came to America on November the 4th, 2008, in the form of an unassuming Senator from the state of Illinois.

Fateo McMurray posted:

Why did that WW1 German soldier's helmet have a swastika on it?

If it was just to remind the viewers that the bodies he was searching were, indeed, German, then come on we're better than that as viewers right?

Charitably, we could conclude that Frank was just conflating the various imagery from the two world wars in his memory.

Fenris13
Jun 6, 2003

pentyne posted:

I have no idea who the actor playing Bohr is, but he does an absolutely amazing job. Everything about his brief character arc is phenomenal

That would be Christian Clemenson, who is often cast as a socially awkward but extremely competent character, much like his role as Bohr. most of his work is phenomenal, and I was sad that it looks like this will be his one and only episode.

I wonder how much longer they will have Oppenheimer fighting against the implosion idea, as it really took off this episode and the longer he fights it the less competent he will be seen as, which is an interesting choice.

NieR Occomata
Jan 18, 2009

Glory to Mankind.

That final scene of the episode with the nurse joyously declaring on armistice day that all wars were over nearly made me break down and sob, that was emotionally incredible

pentyne
Nov 7, 2012

Toxxupation posted:

That final scene of the episode with the nurse joyously declaring on armistice day that all wars were over nearly made me break down and sob, that was emotionally incredible

That contrasted to the eagerness of the Eckley group, Bohr's final speech to Charlie about what "How big" meant, and Winter's almost insane determination to prove he can make a better bomb more quickly was absolutely incredible. Even for a summer show the writing, acting, sound design, pacing etc. is top tier for a major network.

I can't begin to imagine what the ethical dilemmas were for the people working on the project, but with Winter we get a man who has seen such horrific sites in war he is killing himself to save a few thousand more lives then the Eckley project would. They're really upselling the Eckley as the golden boy groomed in Ivory towers while Winters is the more smarter, more competent, and way more determined to succeed. I'm hoping the group vs group conflict finishes up in the season so they can focus more on the implosion bomb, the researchers concerns of what it does, and finally the reality of what the A-bomb will do to a massive population.

One of the selling points for this show is how great they are addressing the personal ethics and fears of the cast. The MP who killed Liao is one of the best side cast members by far. The MPs seem to all be a bunch of eager GI Joe wannabes who can't wait to shoot at someone, and the only one who has is now in a far different place and despises the pats on the shoulder everyone wants to give him.

Fenris13 posted:

That would be Christian Clemenson, who is often cast as a socially awkward but extremely competent character, much like his role as Bohr. most of his work is phenomenal, and I was sad that it looks like this will be his one and only episode.

2006 Emmy Award Winner for Best Guest Actor in a Drama Series.

This is pretty crazy. WGN is not holding back the purse strings for this show.

pentyne fucked around with this message at 16:49 on Aug 19, 2014

NieR Occomata
Jan 18, 2009

Glory to Mankind.

I've really never seen a show that can sandbag you with these massive emotional pieces out of nowhere with almost zero setup; most emotional shows have the emotionality be a slow build as they set the stage, as it were; manhattan instead just out of fuckin nowhere makes you wanna break down and cry, or creates a tone with little or no comment

Like Bohr was great but to me the truly amazing part of the how big scene is Charlie spontaneously starting to cry and immediately wiping it away as he realizes the full terrible scope of what he's participating in, the shot doesn't even focus on it at all and it's gone in a second but it completely sets the tone in a way that's hugely impactful with no dialog or even cinematic focus

And again, acclaim on that final scene, I just wanted to start sobbing because whilst I do have a personal connection to armed conflict it so innately and concisely grasped the grim futility of war in a way that was so incredibly well-done, what a loving guy punch

Jesus Christ I can barely talk about this show without getting emotional

Oh by the way that whole subplot with the PFC and the daughter... That was incredibly bad right? Like one scene she's a prick to him, in literally the very next scene she's showing off her boobs? Was a scene missing from that plot or something? What the gently caress was going on? How did the Pfc even know she was there? Had he been creepily stalking her, or does he just wait outside her house a couple of hours a night hoping for tit? What the hell was going on?

pentyne
Nov 7, 2012

Toxxupation posted:

I've really never seen a show that can sandbag you with these massive emotional pieces out of nowhere with almost zero setup; most emotional shows have the emotionality be a slow build as they set the stage, as it were; manhattan instead just out of fuckin nowhere makes you wanna break down and cry, or creates a tone with little or no comment

Like Bohr was great but to me the truly amazing part of the how big scene is Charlie spontaneously starting to cry and immediately wiping it away as he realizes the full terrible scope of what he's participating in, the shot doesn't even focus on it at all and it's gone in a second but it completely sets the tone in a way that's hugely impactful with no dialog or even cinematic focus

And again, acclaim on that final scene, I just wanted to start sobbing because whilst I do have a personal connection to armed conflict it so innately and concisely grasped the grim futility of war in a way that was so incredibly well-done, what a loving guy punch

Jesus Christ I can barely talk about this show without getting emotional

Oh by the way that whole subplot with the PFC and the daughter... That was incredibly bad right? Like one scene she's a prick to him, in literally the very next scene she's showing off her boobs? Was a scene missing from that plot or something? What the gently caress was going on? How did the Pfc even know she was there? Had he been creepily stalking her, or does he just wait outside her house a couple of hours a night hoping for tit? What the hell was going on?

The PFC seems to be more important as someone on base who personally understands the cost of taking a human life during war while everyone else is more or less getting a free pass from the front lines and eager to kill a Jap/Nazi without any awareness of what war is. He's being set-up as the MP counterpart to Winter, Winter being the only scientist we've shown has a deeply personal stake in the cost of war.

I'll say it again, this show is holding nothing back. I don't know where the got the writers or who is overseeing them but the directive from WGN must have been "Make it perfect, we don't care how long/expensive it takes, hire any actor you need, talent/quality takes precedence"

Btw, this forum still has a mod, right? I'd really like this show to get a sticky on Sunday nights to draw more attention to the show. Of all the other Sunday night shows, True Blood, Masters of Sex, Ray Donavon, Last Ship, this is the only one I would try to encourage people to watch.

Fray
Oct 22, 2010

WilWheaton posted:

Just watched this last episode, it was good but I didn't think it was quite as strong as the previous ones, maybe just because the flashbacks felt like a bit of a stretch, but, they do a decent job of showing you franks motivations, even if it is a bit of a blatant slap in the face to do that.

They might also be going a bit too strong on the 'implosion device is the underdog' angle. I know they knew the gun-bomb would work for sure and thats the reason the implosion device had to be tested, but, the gun type side would have been far more desperate for figuring out how to diffuse uranium 235 from 238 as I understand it. Even in 1946 when they had ordered a couple hundred nukes have they only had 9 in the US.

Yeah, historically they charged ahead full-bore on both designs simultaneously, because they weren't sure whether HEU or plutonium would ultimately be easier to produce. They also weren't really competitors because they figured that out very early that a Plutonium gun-type device would have been extremely unreliable, so it would have to use HEU.

Escobarbarian
Jun 18, 2004


Grimey Drawer
Although I agree with most of what's being said that nurse in the final scene literally saying "The war is over!!! There will never be another" was the most immensely ham-fisted crap

counterfeitsaint
Feb 26, 2010

I'm a girl, and you're
gnomes, and it's like
what? Yikes.
That was the popular sentiment at the time. Everyone believed that there couldn't possibly be another war like that.

That scene was great because it worked on two levels, not only was she so tragically wrong, but that means his squad and buddies just died for nothing.

Leb
Jan 15, 2004


Change came to America on November the 4th, 2008, in the form of an unassuming Senator from the state of Illinois.

counterfeitsaint posted:

That was the popular sentiment at the time. Everyone believed that there couldn't possibly be another war like that.

That scene was great because it worked on two levels, not only was she so tragically wrong, but that means his squad and buddies just died for nothing.

Yeah, that a super common sentiment most famously promulgated by none other than H.G. Wells. I mean, it's easy to be cynical now, with the weight of history at our backs, but I could easily imagine a young nurse, having just lived through the most terrible war the world had ever seen who, upon receiving word of the Armistice, could genuinely believe such a thing.

Shimrra Jamaane
Aug 10, 2007

Obscure to all except those well-versed in Yuuzhan Vong lore.
Yeah, there was basically an existential crisis throughout much of European society during the war. To the average Joe viewing the unprecedented horror of never ending industrialized war it honestly looked like all of human civilization was going to collapse under the weight of this conflict. When it suddenly ended in an armistice it was regarded as a loving gift from God.

Anyway I'm gonna binge watch this when I have time this week.

Norwegian Rudo
May 9, 2013
World War I was known as the war to end all wars, and they believed that literally.

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Escobarbarian
Jun 18, 2004


Grimey Drawer
I don't mean the sentiment is bad, I mean literally the actual line as spoken is terrible.

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